EU lead-free directive

[Joerg]

Hello Spehro,

Yup, one of the irritating things for people who move from such places
to more "civilized" countries is that you often *can't* speed things
up by paying what is usually a pittance more. The civil servants are
unionized, relatively well paid and generally incorruptable.

Usually but not always. This morning's paper in Sacramento reported
about one public servant who is going to "Club Fed" for six months.

Regards, Joerg

 

[keith]

Let's see, say a battery weighs 10kg, that 4% not recycled is 400g.
Assume 10 million are dumped each year in Europe. That's 4000000 tonnes
of dumped lead per annum.

You were expecting sanity?

I reckon the solder in a typical PCB is about 5g max. So my annual use
of lead is about 5kg max. There's room for 800 million small businesses
like mine before we equal the car battery. That should solve Europe's
unemployment problem!

They fixed that problem with ISO9000. There are 800 million jobs filing
paperwork now.

 

[Paul Burke]

I was however quite impressed that when I once needed to - I was able to get a 'next day' passport by going to one of the Passport Offices ( London was the
nearest to me ) in person at no extra cost IIRC..

Them was the days. I had to get one for Idiot Daughter last easter. The
quick passport now costs twice an ordinary one. Plus driving to
Liverpool, good job someone else had the hubcaps first...

Paul Burke

 

[Robert Latest]

What about the rest of us that make electronics designed to last for
decades?

We don't have the lobby -- plain and simple. Like you say:

A far more practical arrangement than a blanket ban on lead, except for
groups with loud lobbyists, would have been a tax on lead-containing
electronics along with obligatory marking of such cards. The tax would
start small, and increase over the years, and be used to finance
recycling plants. Then mass manufacturers would use lead-free to save
their profits, while smaller and specialist manufacturers could choose.

This is the one thing that scars the industry more than a new
regulation -- something that might cut their profits, and, much
worse, might create an advantage for their more inventive
competition.

robert

 

[Peter]

Sort of a moot issue isn't it?

The Dutch just voted down the EU Constitution.

Does that make ROHS dead?

 

[Peter]

|(11) Exemptions from the substitution requirement should be
|permitted if substitution is not possible from the scientific
|and technical point of view

Let's look at this one.

Let's say I am buying a microcontroller, which is not in a lead-free
package; it's a very old design and is approaching a last time buy. In
fact, I've had to buy the last few k from the cowboy dealers who buy
up old stocks.

It would take about 1 man-year of work to redesign the product with a
different micro.

I am planning to buy up a LOT of old stock of this chip; enough to
last me about 10 years, because I don't have the resources to re-do
what's in it, and also because what's in it is of very high quality
(zero bugs discovered in > 10 years). This product has a very long
life.

Does that mean I am exempt? It says "is not possible". But surely
anything is "possible". One can put a man on the moon.

The more practical problem is that my customers are continually asking
me for an ROHS statement. I just say we will be compliant by July
2006. After that, I might be telling a lie. Presumably, everybody else
will have to do the same - even those who are relying on clear and
genuine exemptions - because few of their customers will be interested
in the fine print; they just want a simple compliance statement.

 

[Jim Thompson]

Does that make ROHS dead?

The Europeon bureaucracy is alive and well, and running at maximum
damage infliction ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[R.Lewis]

Let's look at this one.

Let's say I am buying a microcontroller, which is not in a lead-free
package; it's a very old design and is approaching a last time buy. In
fact, I've had to buy the last few k from the cowboy dealers who buy
up old stocks.

It would take about 1 man-year of work to redesign the product with a
different micro.

I am planning to buy up a LOT of old stock of this chip; enough to
last me about 10 years, because I don't have the resources to re-do
what's in it, and also because what's in it is of very high quality
(zero bugs discovered in > 10 years). This product has a very long
life.

Does that mean I am exempt? It says "is not possible". But surely
anything is "possible". One can put a man on the moon.

The more practical problem is that my customers are continually asking
me for an ROHS statement. I just say we will be compliant by July
2006. After that, I might be telling a lie. Presumably, everybody else
will have to do the same - even those who are relying on clear and
genuine exemptions - because few of their customers will be interested
in the fine print; they just want a simple compliance statement.

Please let us know of your product.
I do not want to be one of the suckers conned into buying, as new, something
with maybe up to 20 year old parts in it.

Are you aware, for example, of the sulphur content on the cardboard boxes in
which you hope to keep these parts, and its diffusion rate through the
primary packaging materials?
How are you going to verify the product integrity/reliabilty etc.

 

[GrumpyOldGeek]

R.Lewis wrote:

Are you aware, for example, of the sulphur content on the cardboard boxes in
which you hope to keep these parts, and its diffusion rate through the
primary packaging materials?
How are you going to verify the product integrity/reliabilty etc.

In my opinion, there are 2 kinds of engineers in the world.
Those that worry about sulfur content of packaging,
ant those that design useful products.

 

[Peter]

They fixed that problem with ISO9000. There are 800 million jobs filing
paperwork now.

How very true. Looking to the future (China etc) the EU may as well be
re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

 

[Pooh Bear]

The Europeon bureaucracy is alive and well, and running at maximum
damage infliction ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I suspect that those countries that get a vote on the proposed
constitution are in reality expressing their distaste for things such as
the Brussels bureacrats. About time too.

Graham